The 2009–2010 Word & World Lecture

Paul as Theologian:His Vocation and Its Significance

for His TheologyARLAND J. HULTGREN

ew would dispute the claim of the British New Testament scholar James D. G.Dunn that “Paul was the first and greatest Christian theologian.”1 But once that

is settled, one has to acknowledge that there are major disagreements on how aperson might even begin to describe Paul’s theology. What is the point of entryfrom which one might arrange a discussion of his major theological claims?

THE SEARCH FOR THE THEOLOGICAL “CENTER” TO PAUL’S THEOLOGY

There are those who have looked for a “center” to Paul’s theology. AmongProtestants in general, it has often been claimed that the center of Paul’s theology isjustification by faith. Some continue to maintain that,2 but others do not. Three ofthe most famous opponents of justification by faith as the center, who happen tohave been Protestants themselves, are Albert Schweitzer, William Wrede, and Kris-ter Stendahl. Schweitzer considered justification by faith a peripheral and subsidi-

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While the discussion about a “center” of Paul’s theology remains contentious,justification by faith remains a core conviction that disrupts and rejuvenatesPaul’s entire theological world. His view of what God is up to in justification,however, is not merely anthropocentric and individualistic; it is theocentric, cor-porate, and cosmic.

1James D. G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998) 2.2Günther Bornkamm, Paul (New York: Harper & Row, 1971; reprinted, Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995) 116,

135–136; Ernst Käsemann, “Justification and Salvation History in the Epistle to the Romans,” Perspectives on Paul

ary teaching in comparison to the doctrine of being “in Christ.”3 Wrede consideredit “the polemical doctrine of Paul” that “is only made intelligible by the struggle ofhis life, his controversy with Judaism and Jewish Christianity, and is only intendedfor this.”4 He goes on to say that the doctrine of justification was Paul’s “weapon”to achieve his mission to the Gentiles, which “must be free from the burden of Jew-ish national custom.”5 And Stendahl regarded justification by faith as a doctrinewith the limited purpose of admitting Gentiles into the people of God. Accordingto him, the “doctrine of justification by faith was hammered out by Paul for thevery specific and limited purpose of defending the rights of Gentile converts to befull and genuine heirs to the promises of God to Israel. Their rights were basedsolely on faith. This was Paul’s very special stance, and he defended it zealouslyagainst any compromise that required circumcision or the keeping of kosher foodlaws by Gentile Christians.”6

The theme of justification will be taken up later in this article, but for now wemust simply acknowledge that the claim that justification by faith is the center ofPaul’s theology has been affirmed vigorously by some and energetically rejected byothers for a long time.

There have been a number of suggestions concerning a possible “center” toPaul’s thinking. Stanley Porter provides extensive documentation and comes upwith a list of what interpreters have proposed as the center. He summarizes thisway: “These include God, Christ or Christology, justification by faith, salvationhistory, reconciliation, apocalyptic, (mystical) participation in Christ, the cross,anthropology and salvation, resurrection and/or exaltation, ethics, and gospel,

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(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971) 74; Mark A. Seifrid, Justification by Faith: The Origin and Development of a CentralPauline Theme (Leiden: Brill, 1992) 270 et passim; Hans Hübner, “Pauli Theologiae Proprium,” New TestamentStudies 26 (1990) 445–473; John Reumann, “Righteousness” in the New Testament: “Justification” in the United StatesLutheran–Roman Catholic Dialogue (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982) 105–120; Eduard Lohse, “Christus, das GesetzesEnde? Die Theologie des Apostels Paulus in kritischer Perspektive,” Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft99 (2008) 18–32.

3Albert Schweitzer, The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle (first German ed., 1930; New York: Seabury, 1968) 225:“The doctrine of righteousness by faith is…a subsidiary crater, which has formed within the rim of the main cra-ter—the mystical doctrine of redemption through the being-in-Christ.”

4William Wrede, Paul (first German ed., 1907; Boston: American Unitarian Association, 1908) 123. Theitalics are in the text. Similarly, according to W. D. Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism: Some Rabbinic Elements inPaul’s Theology, 2d ed. (London: SPCK, 1955) 222, justification is “central” in contexts only where there are “certainpolemical necessities.”

5Wrede, Paul, 127.6Krister Stendahl, Paul among Jews and Gentiles (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976) 2.

we must simply acknowledge that the claim thatjustification by faith is the center of Paul’s theology hasbeen affirmed vigorously by some and energetically rejectedby others for a long time

among others.”7 Porter himself does not contend for a center, but holds that thereare some assumptions, concepts, and developments in Paul’s thinking that can bedescribed.

WHAT KIND OF THEOLOGIAN?

It is important to realize in all this that Paul himself never speaks of his theol-ogy; he speaks of his gospel (Rom 2:16; 1 Cor 9:18; 2 Cor 4:3; 11:4; Gal 1:18–19; 2:2,7). Nevertheless, anyone who reads his letters knows that Paul was a profoundtheologian, the first major theologian in the history of Christianity to leave a liter-ary legacy of his thinking that has remained for subsequent generations.

There was a time, exemplified by Philip Melanchthon, when Paul wasthought to be the first systematic theologian, who left a compendium of Christiandoctrine when he wrote Romans.8 But few would think of him that way any longer.In recent decades scholars have described Paul as a contextual theologian, as in thecase of J. Christiaan Beker, James D. G. Dunn, and Calvin Roetzel,9 or as a pastoraltheologian, as in the case of Abraham Malherbe.10

Surely, the point that Paul expressed himself contextually and in practical,pastoral settings is an important and valid one. His letters show all the marks of be-ing responsive to live issues in his congregations. But is it sufficient to say thatPaul’s theology was given birth and growth as a response to issues raised within thecontexts of his ministry? There is another way to look at the matter, and that is thatthe contexts in which he worked and the circumstances he faced brought his think-ing to the fore, based upon some prior convictions. The fact is that, in spite of thedifferences that exist among his letters, there is a theological coherence—a familyresemblance—among them. It is primarily that coherence, for example, that dis-tinguishes his writings from others in the New Testament, including those judgedto be deutero-Pauline.

But if there is a coherence to Paul’s theology that is expressed in contexts andin practical situations, can anything be identified as that which drives and ener-gizes him as a pastoral, contextual theologian?

Throughout history there has been a tendency to read and interpret Paul and

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7Stanley E. Porter, “Is There a Center to Paul’s Theology?” in Paul and His Theology, ed. S. E. Porter (Boston:Brill, 2006) 9–11. Porter provides extensive documentation, which has been omitted here. Still other claims for a“center” are reviewed by Frank Thielman, Theology of the New Testament: A Canonical and Synthetic Approach(Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005) 231.

8Philip Melanchthon, The Loci Communes of Philipp Melanchthon, trans. Charles L. Hill (Boston: Meador,1944) 69.

9J. Christiaan Beker, Paul the Apostle: The Triumph of God in Life and Thought (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980)24; Dunn, Theology of Paul the Apostle, 11; Calvin J. Roetzel, Paul: The Man and the Myth (Columbia: University ofSouth Carolina Press, 1998) 93–94. Beker uses the terms “contingency” and “coherence” in regard to Paul’s theol-ogy and maintains that there is no abstract, coherent center that can be removed from Paul’s addressing a particularaudience. There is no “universal, timeless substance” to “be poured into every conceivable situation regardless ofhistorical circumstance.”

10Abraham J. Malherbe, Paul and the Thessalonians: The Philosophic Tradition of Pastoral Care (Philadel-phia: Fortress, 1987) 1.

his letters from an anthropocentric and individualistic viewpoint. That is to say,Paul has been interpreted from the perspective of the human predicament, par-ticularly the predicament of the individual, and how that is resolved through faithin Christ. That approach has been taken most stridently in modern times by Ru-dolf Bultmann, who has written:

Pauline theology is not a speculative system. It deals with God not as He is inHimself but only with God as He is significant for man, for man’s responsibilityand man’s salvation….Every assertion about God is simultaneously an asser-tion about man and vice versa. For this reason and in this sense Paul’s theologyis, at the same time, anthropology….The christology of Paul likewise is gov-erned by this point of view. In it, Paul does not speculatively discuss the meta-physical essence of Christ, or his relation to God, or his “natures,” but speaks ofhim as the one through whom God is working for the salvation of the worldand man. Thus, every assertion about Christ is also an assertion about man andvice versa; and Paul’s Christology is simultaneously soteriology.11

There is something quite compelling in Bultmann’s view. How people thinkof God or of Christ is often related in some way to how they think of the humancondition and about themselves in particular. One sees that, for example, in someof the hymns of the church, such as one by the Anglican clergyman Henry WilliamsBaker (1921–1977):

The King of love my shepherd is,whose goodness faileth never;

I nothing lack if I am hisand he is mine forever.12

Whenever I sing this hymn, based on Ps 23, I affirm something about God.God is a God of love; God’s goodness never fails. But I also say something aboutmyself. I belong to this God, and therefore I lack nothing. Thoughts about God andthe self are bound together. All that is done by a skillful choice of words and withan admirable economy of expression.

Or one can take other familiar illustrations, including several from Luther’sSmall Catechism. A good example is what he says in regard to the first article of theApostles’ Creed. The creed itself says simply, “I believe in God, the Father Al-mighty, Creator of heaven and earth.” But what does that mean? Luther writes: “Ibelieve that God has created me together with all that exists. God has given me andstill preserves my body and soul: eyes, ears, and all limbs and senses; reason and allmental faculties”13 and so on. In other words, when I speak of God as Creator, I alsosay something about myself. Bultmann stands, then, in the Reformation traditionwhen he says that Paul’s theology is, at the same time, anthropology.

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11Rudolf Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, 2 vols. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1951–1955)1: 190–191.

12Hymn 502, Evangelical Lutheran Worship (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2006).13In The Book of Concord, ed. Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000) 354.

The anthropological approach has not been limited to the work of Bultmann.It can also be found lurking beneath the surface of other treatments of Paul’s theol-ogy, whether older or newer. To take an old example, we can return to AlbertSchweitzer. In his way of thinking, the center of Paul’s theology is what he called a“Christ-mysticism.” By means of that term, he says: “I am in Christ; in Him I knowmyself as a being who is raised above this sensuous, sinful, and transient world andalready belongs to the transcendent; in Him I am assured of resurrection; in Him Iam a Child of God.”14 Here, as in Bultmann, the focus is on the human subject—the human being—and therefore it is an anthropological approach.

The anthropological approach appears also in works so widely divergent asthe studies of Paul by Günther Bornkamm, W. D. Davies, and Douglas Campbell.According to Bornkamm, “every statement” that Paul makes in his letters “aboutGod, Christ, Spirit, Law, judgment, and salvation is at the same time one aboutman in his world, the old lost man and the new one set free by God.”15 According toDavies, what animated Paul’s thinking was the concept of one’s dying and risingwith Christ, by which one becomes obedient to God in a disobedient world.16

Again, the focus is on the believer, whose life is conformed to a pattern we see inChrist’s own. More recently, Campbell has called for another type of anthropologi-cal approach. He uses a long, torturous phrase to propose the most adequate wayto understand Paul. For him, the most satisfactory approach is to grasp on toPaul’s “pneumatologically participatory martyrological eschatology.” The way hedescribes all that is to say that at the center of Paul’s thinking, believers participate“in a martyrological set of events focused on Christ and his cross and crucifixion,as well as in the resurrection.” All that is enabled by the power of the Holy Spirit.17

The emphasis in Campbell has shifted somewhat from the Christ-mysticism ofSchweitzer to participation in Christ. That way of thinking, however, still tends to beanthropological in character because of its stress on the believer’s coming to partici-pate in Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection, aided by the Spirit; and by thatsame Spirit the believer lives a life that is transformed into something radically new.18

Finally, the anthropological approach appears under a different formulationin the work of E. P. Sanders. According to Sanders, Paul’s primary concern is how

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14Schweitzer, The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle, 3; cf. statements also on pp. 124 and 225 on the centrality ofChrist-mysticism for Paul.

15Bornkamm, Paul, 118.16W. D. Davies, Invitation to the New Testament: A Guide to Its Main Witnesses (Garden City: Doubleday,

1966) 345–355.17Douglas A. Campbell, The Quest for Paul’s Gospel: A Suggested Strategy (New York: T & T Clark, 2005)

41–42; cf. 262–263.18Ibid, 40.

Bultmann stands in the Reformation tradition when hesays that Paul’s theology is, at the same time, anthropology

persons can “get in” and “stay in” the people of God. The question is: How can onebe assured of the favor of God, and thus become one of those being saved? Thematter has been expressed by Sanders in this way:

Much of what Paul wrote falls within a framework which I call “getting in andstaying in.” The framework, besides those two topics, includes what happens tothose who do not “get in” and what happens to those who get in but who donot behave in the way which Paul considers appropriate to life in the Spirit.19

Although the anthropological, individualistic approach continues to have anappeal, it is one-sided. It also tends to be overly anthropocentric, placing so muchemphasis upon the human being, particularly the self, and failing to take into con-sideration those accents in Paul’s work concerning the work of God for the re-demption of all that God has made. The point that will be made in what follows isthat Paul’s theology is first of all theocentric, not anthropocentric, and that it iscorporate and cosmic, not just individualistic, in its scope. The question for Paul isnot how the individual person “gets in and stays in” the company of those who aresaved. The primary question is theocentric: How can God reclaim the creation? Andin regard to human beings: How can God get us in and keep us there? To go in thatdirection, I think, is to go back not only prior to the Reformation, but also prior toConstantine, when there were so very few Christians.

PAUL’S VOCATION

In trying to understand Paul, there are two irreducible facts about him, sincehe mentions them in his letters. One is that he persecuted the church in his earlyyears. He refers to it three times (1 Cor 15:9; Gal 1:13; Phil 3:6). The other fact isthat he was called and sent as an apostle to the nations of the world. Like theprophets before him, who were called to their prophetic tasks (see especially Isa46:1–6; Jer 1:5), Paul claimed that he was called by God for a particular vocation. InGal 1:15–16 he declares that God had set him apart before he was born, revealed hisSon to him, and called him to proclaim the Son of God among the nations. His lan-guage recalls that of Jeremiah, who says that God consecrated him before he wasborn and appointed him to be a prophet to the nations (Jer 1:5). The parallel is ob-vious. Paul, like Jeremiah, claimed to have a vocation—prenatal in origin, butgiven by divine revelation when he was an adult—to be God’s envoy among thenations of the world. Paul understood himself to be a child of Israel’s heritage,standing in a succession of persons called and commissioned by God for specialroles, a succession that reached far back into the history of the people of God.

What is striking about Paul’s call as an apostle is that it came about when hewas least likely or ready to receive it. He was a persecutor of the church and zealousfor the ancestral traditions. But in spite of that, God revealed his Son to him and

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19E. P. Sanders, Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983) 6; for similar expressions,see his Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977) 544.

called him to be an apostle to the nations of the world. It is appropriate to call himapostle to the nations, rather than simply apostle to the Gentiles. He says that he isapostle to the e!qnh (Rom 11:13), a Greek term that can be translated either as“Gentiles” or “nations.” He was indeed an apostle to the Gentiles, but not simplyan apostle to individuals of non-Jewish birth. If that were so, there were plenty ofGentiles in Roman Palestine and Syria to occupy him for a lifetime. But he pro-claimed the gospel to various ethnicities, the nations of the world in which he lived,including Syria, Cilicia, central and western Asia Minor, Macedonia, Greece, per-haps even Arabia, while he resided there, and he hoped to get to Rome, go on toSpain—and perhaps beyond. Indeed, he declared at one place that his travels as anapostle were intended to follow an arc or circle (kuvklw/) from Jerusalem to Il-lyricum (modern Albania) and then on to Spain (Rom 15:19, 24, 28), encompass-ing the northern semicircle of the Mediterranean world. And if we are allowed tospeculate, it is possible that after his work in Spain, he would have crossed theStraits of Gibraltar and gone across northern Africa back to Jerusalem, completingthe circle.20 In any case, Paul says that his ambition was to preach the gospel inplaces where it had never been preached before (Rom 15:20; cf. 2 Cor 10:15–16); heis apostle to the nations.

In order to understand Paul as a theologian, it is necessary to take his call intoserious account—an experience that determined the course of his life, an eventthat Luke relates three times over (Acts 9:1–9; 22:4–16; 26:9–18), and what we usu-ally call the Damascus Road experience. The risen Christ appeared to Paul the per-secutor and commissioned him to be an apostle to the nations. That was hisvocation, his calling. He also speaks of the appearance of Christ to him twice in hisletters (1 Cor 9:1; 15:8). For him that appearance was undeserved and astonishing.

The result of the divine initiative in calling him was that Paul had a sense ofdynamism in God like never before. Even as an apostle of the good news of re-demption in Christ, Paul continued to center his thoughts upon God, the God ofIsrael. To be sure, he could speak of Christ as one who acted in the drama of hu-man redemption; so Christ is the subject of some sentences. He says that Christ“died for us” (Rom 5:6; 14:9; 1 Thess 4:14; 5:10), that he “emptied himself, takingthe form of a servant” (Phil 2:7), and that he “redeemed us from the curse of thelaw by becoming a curse for us” (Gal 3:13). But generally and more characteristi-cally, when he speaks of redemption, the subject of the sentences is God, not

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20John Knox, “Romans 15:14–33 and Paul’s Conception of His Apostolic Mission,” Journal of Biblical Lit-erature 83 (1964) 11. For more on this hypothesis, see Arland J. Hultgren, “The Scriptural Foundations for Paul’sMission to the Gentiles,” in Porter, Paul and His Theology, 27–29.

Paul, like Jeremiah, claimed to have a vocation—prenatal inorigin, but given by divine revelation when he was an adult—to be God’s envoy among the nations of the world

Christ. And so he says: God did not withhold his Son (Rom 8:32); rather, indeed,God put forth Christ as a means of atonement (Rom 3:25); God sent his Son (Rom8:3; Gal 4:4); God condemned sin in the flesh of his Son (Rom 8:3); and God raisedhim from the dead (Rom 4:24; 10:9; 1 Cor 6:14; Phil 2:9).

Beyond these passages that speak directly of the redemptive work of God inChrist, there are other passages in which Paul speaks about God as actor in adrama. And so he says that: God reveals both his righteousness and his wrath (Rom1:17–18; 3:21); God gives life to the dead (Rom 4:19) and will raise us (1 Cor 6:14; 1Thess 4:14); God gives/sends the Spirit (Gal 4:6; 1 Thess 4:8); God sanctifies believersthrough the Spirit (1 Thess 5:23); God has reconciled the world unto himself; andGod has commissioned us to be his ambassadors of reconciliation (2 Cor 5:18–20).

Paul’s primary emphasis is on God, rather than on Christ or the Spirit. Thatshould not come as a surprise. Paul was a child of Abraham, a Benjaminite (Phil3:5), and an heir of all that he had learned from the traditions of Israel. He couldnot for a moment abandon that heritage; he was not severed from it. He thought ofhimself as standing at another point along the way of God’s story, a stage at whichthe fullness of time had come. He was more theocentric than christocentric in histhinking. But his theocentric thinking did not end up with speculations about Godin abstraction. No, God is the living and active God of Israel’s story, culminating inthe sending of his Messiah Jesus. So Paul’s theology was not only theocentric buttheopractic as well. That is to say, although Christ is the means by which redemp-tion is carried out, the major actor in the drama of redemption is God. God is a re-deeming God.

PAUL’S VOCATION AND HIS THEOLOGY

Paul’s call to apostleship had a decisive effect upon the way he does theology.By referring to his call, I am referring specifically to the event itself, God’s revealinghis Son to him and commissioning him, as a defining moment. It is there that Pauldiscovered that God breaks down barriers of unbelief and acts of defiance and re-bellion. That event, with all its overwhelming features, affected Paul’s thinking,and that can be traced out in several ways, but limited here to only four: his under-standing of the righteousness of God first of all, and then its implications for thenations of the world, for the people of Israel, and for the creation.

The Righteousness of God

In one of his best-known passages within Romans, Paul declares that “therighteousness of God” has been disclosed in the coming of Christ into the world(Rom 3:21–26). In using the phrase “the righteousness of God,” Paul speaks of theright-wising activity of God, God’s saving work. Its background is not first of allthe law court, as the Reformation tradition has usually held, but the Old Testamentand intertestamental writings where a plethora of passages speak of the righteous-ness of God. A classic text that demonstrates this is Ps 98:2 (LXX, 97:2):

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The LORD has made known his salvation (otu*Wvy+/swthvrion);he has revealed his righteousness (otq*d+x!/dikaiosuvnhn) in the sight of

the nations.

The parallelism between the biblical words for salvation and righteousness is clearenough; the righteousness of God and God’s saving activity are the same thing. Thatis exemplified even further in that there are passages in the Old Testament where thewriters speak of God’s righteousness as God’s saving deeds in delivering his peoplefrom their oppressors and enemies (1 Sam 12:7; Dan 9:15–16; Mic 6:5). On the basisof these and other passages, Gerhard von Rad concludes that “from the earliest timesonwards Israel celebrated Jahweh as the one who bestowed on his people the all-embracing gift of his righteousness. And this hqdx bestowed on Israel is always asaving gift.”21

Moreover, there are passages aplenty in the Old Testament and other writingsthat speak of the revelation of the righteousness of God in the coming of the Mes-siah or the messianic age. Those texts existed prior to Paul, contemporary withhim, and even after him in rabbinic sources.22 In those places the authors speak ofthe advent of the righteousness of God with the coming of the Messiah. A few ex-amples can be cited.

Jeremiah speaks of the coming of a righteous descendant of David who willreign and “do justice and righteousness upon the earth”; and he will be called“Lord of righteousness” (Jer 23:5–6). Isaiah declares that in the days to come abranch shall arise from the family of David, God’s spirit will rest upon him, and hewill be girded with righteousness (Isa 11:1–5). The author of Third Isaiah declaresthat in some future time, a messianic era, the Lord will cause righteousness andgladness to spring up before all the nations (Isa 61:11). And he says that God’srighteousness and salvation will go forth to all the world (Isa 62:1–2).

Similar messianic ideas can be found in intertestamental literature. In theTestament of Judah, commonly regarded as coming from the second century B.C.E.,it is said that the Messiah will walk in righteousness and save all who call upon theLord (24.1–6). And in the century prior to the rise of Christianity, the work knownas the Psalms of Solomon refers to the Messiah and his righteousness. The book isthought to have been produced in a circle of Pharisees. As Pharisaic, it stands inPaul’s spiritual and intellectual tradition, for he had belonged to the Pharisaic

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21Gerhard von Rad, Old Testament Theology, 2 vols. (New York: Harper & Row, 1962–1965) 1:377.22For various references, see Arland J. Hultgren, Paul’s Gospel and Mission: The Outlook from His Letter to the

Romans (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985) 21–26.

the parallelism between the biblical words for salvation andrighteousness is clear enough; the righteousness of God and God’ssaving activity are the same thing

movement (Phil 3:5). In these psalms it is said that the Messiah will be a “righteousking” (17.32); that “he will gather a holy people whom he will lead in righteous-ness” (17.26); and he will be endowed with “strength and righteousness” (17.29).23

In the entire collage of passages, it becomes apparent, in the words of Sig-mund Mowinckel, that “the term [righteousness] is closely associated with salva-tion….The righteousness of the Messiah consists of his saving his people:righteousness and salvation are identical.”24

It has to be granted that the pictures of the Messiah and the messianic agethat are portrayed in these and other texts are varied and that a straight line cannotbe drawn from them collectively to any portrait that resembles Jesus of Nazareth asthe Messiah in the canonical gospels. But that is true with connections made tomany texts considered messianic in the Old Testament. If one places all the pas-sages of the Old Testament and intertestamental texts that can be considered mes-sianic end to end and reviews them, one does not get a portrait corresponding toJesus in the canonical gospels—one who was born in a stable, an itinerant preacherwho had no place to lay his head (Matt 8:20//Luke 9:58), was rejected by most, fol-lowed by so very few, and finally crucified. Jesus’ ministry, death, and resurrectionredefine messiahship in a new key, having a resemblance to some passages in theOld Testament that can be considered messianic (e.g., Jer 11:19), but not to most.One has to give even Jesus some slack here and allow for a canon within the canonto make this work. But what is important to observe in the Old Testament and in-tertestamental literature is that the term “righteousness” is associated with theMessiah and the messianic age. Righteousness or salvation is to be a major captionplaced under any portrait of the Messiah or the messianic age. One can expect thatthe association between the Messiah and righteousness would be familiar to Paul,the former Pharisee and student of Israel’s Scriptures.

The significance of this for understanding Paul as a theologian is that, forhim, the righteousness of God, God’s saving activity, is at or near the center of anyconstellation of concepts about God and about the Lord’s Messiah. After he hadexperienced the revelation of the risen Lord, Paul understood that the righteous-ness of God had already appeared in Christ. It was all in line with what the Scrip-tures of Israel had taught all along. God had the sending of a Messiah, a righteousking, in view from days long past, and that Messiah would establish righteousnessin the world; he would come as Savior. And now he has come.

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23The texts for these two books are available in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, ed. James H. Charles-worth, 2 vols. (New York: Doubleday, 1983–1985) 1:801 and 2:667, respectively; their dates of composition are dis-cussed in the same volumes by H. C. Kee (1:777–778) and R. B. Wright (2:640–641).

24Sigmund Mowinckel, He That Cometh (Nashville: Abingdon, 1954) 308–309.

righteousness or salvation is to be a major caption placedunder any portrait of the Messiah or the messianic age

That means that Paul’s concern as a theologian was to work out the impli-cations of the revelation of the righteousness of God in the sending of his Son.He had to do that as an apostle to the Gentile nations where people had neverheard of Jesus, and most had never heard of Abraham, Moses, or any of theprophets. The exception would be those Gentiles known as “God-fearers”25—persons on the fringe of Jewish communities—who had a rudimentary knowledgeof the major events, figures, and religious terms in the Scriptures of Israel, but werestill Gentiles.

The Gentiles/Nations

The problem that Paul had to face, and then explain, was how God can in-clude the Gentile nations in final salvation. The answer came to him through atleast two sources. First, the appearance of the risen Christ to him must in itself havechanged his thinking from making the traditional Pharisaic distinction betweenJews and Gentiles. Although we cannot know exactly what was communicated tohim when the risen Christ appeared to him, Paul knew from then on that Jesus wasindeed the Messiah, and he knew enough about the earthly Jesus to know that heconsorted with persons who did not observe the law according to Pharisaic stan-dards, and who could be considered by the Pharisees as no different from Gentiles.

Second, another source supported the first, and that was the Scriptures of Is-rael. The Scriptures speak of the inclusion of Gentiles in the time of the Messiah ormessianic age.26 They also teach justification by faith. In one of his most clever andenchanting passages, located in Rom 4, Paul puts forth a fascinating rabbinic-styled argument. He observes that even the great patriarch of the Jewish people,Abraham, was accounted righteous by faith while he was still a Gentile. Paul pointsout that Abraham was considered righteous, or justified, by believing the promisesof God (Gen 15:6). But Abraham was not ritually circumcised—and therefore hewas not a son of the covenant—until the story in chapter 17, which tells of his cir-cumcision at the age of ninety-nine (17:24). That means that Abraham was a Gen-tile and had been justified by faith for many years. The Old Testament text does nottell us how many years there were between chapters 15 and 17, but there is onetime indicator in chapter 16. That is that when Ishmael was born, Abraham waseighty-six (16:16), so there had to be at least thirteen years between Abraham’s jus-tification and his circumcision. But a rabbinic text goes further than that. Accord-ing to that text,27 Abraham was seventy years old at the time that he was declared tobe justified in 15:6. That would mean that Abraham was a justified-by-faith Gen-tile for twenty-nine years—an entire generation—prior to his circumcision at

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25God-fearers are mentioned by Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 14.110, at Acts 10:2, 23, 25; 13:16, 26, 50; 16:14;17:4, 17, and in inscriptions.

26This theme is explored in Hultgren, “The Scriptural Foundations for Paul’s Mission to the Gentiles,”21–44. The eschatological conversion of Gentiles is also envisioned by Philo, On the Virtues 119–120; On the Life ofMoses 2.44.

27Olam Rabbah 1; quoted in Hermann L. Strack and Paul Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament ausTalmud und Midrasch, 6 vols. (Munich: C. H. Beck’sche, 1922–1961) 3:203.

ninety-nine. Whether that tradition existed at the time of Paul, and whether he wasaware of it or not, cannot be known. What is certain is that Paul was aware of thegeneral time frame, and he made a point of it, namely, that the promise to Abra-ham, and the declaration of his righteousness by faith in the divine promise, wasprior to his circumcision. Therefore circumcision and the corollary that flows fromthat—observing the Torah—were not, and are not, a precondition for righteous-ness. From this Paul draws a sweeping conclusion. He understands Abraham to bethe father not only of the people Israel but of all who believe the promises of God.As Abraham believed in the God who gives life to the dead, and so was accountedrighteous, so all those who believe that God gives life to the dead in the resurrec-tion of Jesus are accounted righteous as well (Rom 4:24; cf. Gal 3:6–9).

For Paul, all believers in Christ form a new humanity. The distinction be-tween Jew and Gentile is overcome within the body of Christ (Gal 3:28). Paulspeaks of the new community as distinct from unbelieving Jews and pagan Gen-tiles, calling it “the church of God” (1 Cor 10:32), “the Israel of God” (Gal 6:16),and its members a new creation (2 Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15). Here is the beginning of theconcept of the church as a distinct body in the world, which is called the “thirdrace” or “new race” of humanity by some writers of the second century, referringto a people distinct from both Jews and pagan Gentiles.28

Israel

But what now can one say about unbelieving Israel? Paul takes up the ques-tion in Rom 9:1–11:36. He must feel compelled to do so after his amazing cres-cendo at the end of chapter 8, where he says so eloquently that nothing in allcreation can separate us from the love of God in Christ. That leads to the question:What then of the Jewish people who have rejected the gospel and continue to doso? How can God get them in or keep them there? Paul spends more time, effort,and ink on this question than on any other in all of his writings. In these 90 versesof chapters 9 through 11, making up about 20 percent of the 432 verses in the let-ter, Paul quotes from the Old Testament directly no less than 35 times, which isabout 39 percent of all quotations in his letters,29 and he alludes to the Old Testa-ment many more times. He begins with a lament of sorrow for the Jewish people.

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28Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 6.5.41 (quoting from the earlier Preaching of Peter); Epistle to Diognetus 1.1.29The figure of 35 quotations is based on a count of verses identified as Old Testament quotations in the 27th

edition of the Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament. Quotations can be seen at 9:7, 9, 12, 13, 15, 17, 20, 25, 26, 27, 28,29, 33; 10:5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 13, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21; 11:2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10, 26, 27, 34, 35. According to Dieter-Alex Koch, DieSchrift als Zeuge des Evangeliums: Untersuchungen zur Verwendung und zum Verständnis der Schrift bei Paulus(Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1986) 21–24, Paul quotes from the Old Testament 89 times in his undis-puted letters; 51 times in Romans alone.

What then of the Jewish people who have rejected thegospel and continue to do so? How can God get them in orkeep them there?

He hopes that he can even save some by means of the gospel. But as the chaptersunfold, it becomes clear that Paul knows full well that the gospel will not be ac-cepted by most of the people of Israel. In the end he resorts to telling his readers a“mystery” (musthvrion, 11:25–32), using an apocalyptic term that signifies a divinemystery disclosed only by revelation.30 That mystery includes the way that Israelwill be saved. Its salvation will come not by its observance of the Torah, not by itsconversion, but only by the grace of God, even though most of the people of Israelare still hostile to the gospel—indeed, “enemies of God” in regard to the gospel, asPaul calls them (11:28). But salvation shall come even to them. “For,” he says, “thegifts and the calling of God are irrevocable” (Rom 11:29). As God has consigned allto disobedience, Jews and Gentiles alike, so God will have mercy on all. One has tolook to the parousia, when Christ will come and Israel’s disobedience will be over-come (11:26). Paul’s own autobiography becomes a clue to Israel’s story. As Christappeared to him, and his defenses gave way, so there will be another moment whenthe Messiah will appear, and Israel’s defenses will give way.

The Creation

Finally, Paul envisions the redemption of the creation as a whole. He spellsthat out in Rom 8:18–25. There he speaks of the creation as groaning, like a womanin labor pains. In other words, there is a time for deliverance to come beyond hu-man and cosmic history and its suffering. Paul declares that “the creation was sub-jected [by God] to futility, not of its own will but by the will of him who subjectedit in hope; because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay andobtain the glorious liberty of the children of God” (8:20–21).31 God’s hope is not anidle dream, but an expectation, a certainty: in due time the creation as a whole willbe set free from its groaning to enjoy the liberty that the children of God have al-ready by faith. Paul’s own calling was a moment when he experienced God as livingand active, a God who right-wised the ungodly and called him (Paul) to newness oflife. And so he can envision that same God as one who will renew the creation. Godhas not abandoned it. God redeems what God has made. Ultimately, the Sonwhom he sent to redeem the world will be subjected to God’s own self “that (i[na)God may be all in all” (1 Cor 15:28).

AND WHAT ABOUT JUSTIFICATION?

In closing, we should return to the question left dangling earlier: Where isjustification in the thinking of Paul? Is it the “center” of his thinking or not? In myview there is a problem with using the term “center,” since it tends to make every-

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30Raymond E. Brown, The Semitic Background of the Term “Mystery” in the New Testament (Philadelphia:Fortress, 1968) 1–30.

31There are translation issues in these two verses. The RSV is quoted here, but the NRSV reflects a differentunderstanding of Paul’s use of o@ti in 8:21, translating it as “that” instead of “because” (or “for”), resulting “in hopethat” instead of “in hope; because.” Some ancient texts (including Sinaiticus and D) have diovti, which is definitely“because,” a scribal interpretation.

thing else less important, and that won’t do. Surely, Paul’s conviction that the Godof the patriarchs is living, reigning, and righteous can be considered every bit ascentral as anything else. His conviction that Jesus is the Messiah sent by a graciousGod can be considered central too. Moreover, if we want to talk about a center toPaul’s whole world of thought, consciousness, and experience together in one con-stellation, it is more likely that its center would not have been a doctrine so muchas a person, the crucified and resurrected Christ, and a particular, utterly trans-forming experience: the appearance of Christ to him.

But finally, we have to think about his theology, if we are to interpret Paul asan apostle, preacher, and writer. At that point it is better to think not so much of acenter to his theology, but of a central core of convictions. And within that core,justification has a pervasive and metadoctrinal function. Once justification entersthe world of theological concepts, it disrupts and then rejuvenates the entire eco-system. In the case of Paul, it affected how he thought theologically about God, forexample, whom he calls the God “who justifies the ungodly” (Rom 4:5); and justi-fication by faith affects how he thinks about Christ (Phil 3:9), the law (Gal 2:16),salvation, baptism (Rom 6:7), the church (1 Cor 6:11), the unity of Jew and Gentilein the church, a mission to the Gentiles, and more. No description of Paul’s theol-ogy can get along without taking justification by faith into account and giving it itsdue as a dynamic force.32

But my argument in this article is that, if we are to deal with Paul’s theology,we ought to get our bearings, first of all, with what Paul tells us about himself—something that happened to him at the very beginning of his apostleship, and wasthe reason for his apostleship and for his theology. That was the event at which hewas called by the God of Israel into his apostleship and consequently his life as atheologian. God disclosed his Son to this one who said of himself: “I am the least ofthe apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God”(1 Cor 15:9). In Paul himself we see a prime illustration of a God who justified theungodly and called him to serve. From the very beginning, then, Paul’s theologyand his proclamation set forth the good news of what God has done in Christ to getus in and keep us there.

ARLAND J. HULTGREN is Asher O. and Carrie Nasby Professor of New Testament at LutherSeminary, Saint Paul, Minnesota. He is the author of the forthcoming Paul’s Letter to the Ro-mans (Eerdmans). Hultgren delivered this address as the seventeenth annual Word & WorldLecture at Luther Seminary on September 23, 2009.

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32It is not simply a weapon used in controversy with those outside the Pauline communities; it is employedby Paul in subtle ways for insiders. He calls the Corinthian believers persons who have been washed, sanctified, andjustified (1 Cor 6:11); it designates their identity. It is implicit in a statement such as “welcome one another…just asChrist has welcomed you” (Rom 15:7).